ny of the baptized had lived formerly in
the south, and contracted a taste for European indulgences,
particularly for strong liquors, from which they had been weaned since
their settling at Hopedale; but these propensities revived when
temptation was presented. The brethren spared no pains, by friendly
exhortations and affectionate remonstrances, to avert the calamity,
yet they had the grief to see three families of eighteen persons
desert the station; among whom were six communicants and several
hopeful young people. The women and children wept bitterly at parting,
and even the men seemed affected, but the latter, led captive by the
wiles of the seducer, forced their families to follow. "We cannot
describe," say the missionaries, "the pain we felt in seeing these
poor deluded people running headlong into danger, and we cried to our
Saviour to keep his hand over them in mercy, and not to suffer them to
become a prey to the enemy of their souls."

Kmoch and his wife, and the single brother Korner, who had so
unexpectedly visited England, returned to Labrador in the brig Jemima
in 1817, accompanied by single brother Beck, a descendant of the
Greenland missionary, who in the third generation inherited the same
spirit. Their voyage was perilous, and their preservation afforded a
new display of the mercy of God towards his devoted servants, engaged
to proclaim salvation to the utmost ends of the earth. On the 2d of
June the Jemima left London, and after stopping at the Orkneys, they
reached within 200 miles of the Labrador coast before the 4th of July;
the weather had been remarkably fine, and they were pleasing
themselves with speedily arriving at their destination, when the
ice-birds gave notice of their approaching the ice.[K] Now the wind
shifted, and on the 7th the drift was seen in every direction: for six
days they made several attempts to penetrate through different
openings, but in vain; fields of ice beset the ship on all sides, and
towards the evening of the 13th they discovered an immense ice-berg
approaching. They were sailing before the wind, and just when they
neared it, became enveloped in so thick a fog that they could not see
a yard from the ship, nor use any means to avoid a concussion which
threatened instant ruin. After an hour of helpless anxiety the fog
dispersed, and they perceived that they had providentially passed at a
very short distance. Next morning land was discovered a-head, which
the captain